Dodge's Dirt

I always wondered when we would get challenged by a nasty dose of winterkill on the golf course. We never really have had it before on a widespread basis. I had a funny feeling around the end of March that this might be the year when the winter, which started a month early, showed no signs of breaking. I was aware that we had some ice sheets underneath the abundant snowfall that formed in the beginning of December. Not the first time for sure but normally our bentgrass surfaces will tolerate ice cover for 120 days or more. This year the time under ice was closer to 160 days. When we finally did pull covers on April 25 (close to a month later than usual), we found the following:

7 Green 4-25-2018

Seven was the worst of the group though several other greens took a beating. Cannot say that I was really surprised-in fact, in March I had picked up some specialized equipment for overseeding just this kind of damage. They are called Job Saver tines. The name is apt because they probably have saved many Superintendents’ jobs over the years. These units allow us to overseed putting greens with minimal surface disruption. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9hAQtTGYZY#action=shareThe procedure for recovery on putting greens is/was as follows:

Fertilize with an ammonium sulfate fertilizer (performs better in cool temperatures) on April 30. We did this before we had irrigation available as both the ground and our irrigation lake were still frozen. We timed this around forecast rainfall. A little risky but a risk worth taking-we had to get greens charging for a quicker recovery.

Run over damaged greens with Job Saver tines. Done on May 7.

Overseed damaged greens with bentgrass seed from a drop seeder. We chose to introduce a bentgrass variety at this time on some greens that should be better suited for our growing environment. Done on May 7.

Topdress greens with sand and drag in. Done on May 7

Roll greens thoroughly. Done on May 7.

Apply a wetting agent to greens to help retain moisture to assist in seedling germination. Done on May 8.

Apply a turf pigment to darken the putting surface to better collect heat from the sun and thus help in raising soil temperatures. Done on May 10.

Apply a starter fertilizer. Plan to do on May 14.

Fertilize during the month of May and June on a weekly basis with a water soluble fertilizer mix that is applied through a sprayer. These rates are much lighter than a granular fertilizer but are readily available to the plant.

Irrigate as needed to keep seedlings alive.

Touch up areas with more seed as needed.

Needless to say, we will be fertilizing greens more than we usually do during this time of the year. Normally I do not like to drive excessive growth as this creates thatch. Thatch makes us have to aerify more. Aerifying makes people angry. I do not like to make people angry but in this case we will have no choice. I predict that after this process we will likely have to core aerify greens in spring of 2019. Another symptom of this recovery process is that greens will likely be running slower than usual for the early part of the year. No way around it but as we proceed through the recovery, we will back off on our fertility program and get greens dialed in to where they need to be. My thoughts are that we should be getting close to normal right around June 20 or so but it really is hard to say-so much depends on the weather-particularly temperatures.Fairways were also damaged somewhat by the glacial conditions this past winter. Some fairways, such as four, came through unscathed. Others, like 11, looked like this today:

11 Fairway May 11, 2018

As on greens, ice developed in low areas on fairways and killed grass. Much of this damage will recover with warmer temperatures. The procedure here is to wait for consistent growth to resume on fairways and observe. Once we determine a surface is truly dead and it becomes firm enough to work on, we will then drive growth with seed/fertilizer as needed to facilitate recovery. Pretty fun stuff. One thing that I got a kick out of during this process is the effect that the pigments have on the appearance of some putting greens:

10 green 5-11-2018 5 green 5-11-2018The difference is really remarkable. I left the 10th green alone in this process because I wanted to have a non-treated control area to determine whether the use of the pigment does indeed assist in the recovery process. Useful knowledge for the future. From a visual standpoint, there really is quite a difference. I mentioned to my wife yesterday that I applied pigments to turf yesterday and the only thing she said was that I was a cheater. Cheating or not, I kind of think that it looks pretty cool and seems to mask some of the damage and hopefully will continue to do so until we grow out of this.No doubt about it-winterkill sucks. The one thing I am enjoying, though, is that this kind of challenge brings out the best-or worst-in the ability of a superintendent to do their job. Kind of like a grow-in with golfers around. On an unrelated note, my Dad passed away on May 4 and I would be remiss to not share the best picture in this article.

Gordon Dodge USMC circa 1953

I pretty much talked to him every day and helped him to get a nice cushy golf course job mowing intermediate rough down in Chicago. That man had the strongest work ethic I have ever been around and made everyone around him better with his generosity and sense of humor. Even now I can imagine him looking at the golf course right now and saying, “What the hell is going on out there!”I am going to miss him greatly.

Thank you all in advance for your patience and I hope to see you on the golf course.

I would like to offer a big thank you to all people who offered their feedback on things like ball washers and bunker rakes on the golf course. The overwhelming majority seemed to be in favor of ball washers located on golf carts-as long as they are maintained properly. When we upgrade to newer carts in the future, we will be sure to strongly consider adding this option to our cart fleet. In the meantime, we will be putting ball washers on the first and 10th tee as well as the Par 3 golf holes. Ball washers on every hole is simply unnecessary and adds clutter to the golf course-something I like to avoid. Another way to avoid clutter is to eliminate rakes in bunkers.

This question elicited some great responses from those of you who contributed. While there were a few (the Traditionalists who actually use them) that felt removing rakes from bunkers was not cool, most of the feedback I received was very positive about giving a try to adding a bunker rake to each golf cart in lieu of rakes in bunkers. Those of you who responded this way are not alone. I did some research by talking with peers on this topic at the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) trade show in San Antonio and this technique has indeed been used with success on many courses. I think that it is worth a try in the future though we will not be implementing this technique this year-our current golf cart fleet does not offer a rake attaching option standard like the newer carts do. We would have to resort to an aftermarket method to install rakes-not something I am enthusiastic about. Like the ball washers, when we upgrade to a more modern golf cart we will be sure to make sure that they have the rake holding option.

Thank all of you for the feedback that I find to be quite valuable in making decisions regarding the golf course. We listen to what you have to say and try to make the right decisions.

Those of you who have been reading my articles over the years know that sometimes-especially when there is snow on the ground (quite a bit at the moment)-I look at the less technical and more social side of our business. I have amused some in the past with my “a golf course is an aquarium” analogy. By our nature, we feel like we are doing our best work by efficiently presenting optimal conditions to our patrons while being noticed as little as possible by players. Golf professionals and Outside Service staff are the face of the golf course-Superintendents and their staff are the foundation of the golf course. Something that provides necessary structure without being seen.

This year on May 8, the GCSAA is launching a program called “Thank A Super” where efforts are made to explain what we actually do. The “Carl Spackler” stereotype has been a tough one to shake in our profession-partially because it is pretty funny and partially because of our lack of exposure to customers compared to Pro Shop staff. For those of you interested in learning more about what it is we do, feel free to click the following link: https://www.gcsaa.org/tagcs-2018/thankasuperI look forward to letting everyone know how the golf course fared through the winter in our next newsletter. Still too much snow on the ground at the moment to know what is going on.

I would like to say thank you to all who presented feedback regarding our future direction with golf course ball washers. Most were of the opinion that they rarely, if ever, used the existing ball washers and that washers on carts or simply a damp towel issued by the starter is a more practical solution. With this in mind, for 2018 we will be reducing the number of ball washer locations adjacent to tees. We will place them on the Par 3 holes and the 1st and 10th tee. This will allow us to gradually condition players to this change over a period of years. Indeed, change is something that I think is needed in many facets of the golf industry. What has worked in the past is not what will necessarily work in the future.

2017 was a year full of extreme weather fluctuations. This pattern did indeed continue in the month of October. We recorded our first hard frost on October 6 (close to a month later than usual) and honestly we enjoyed some of our best weather of the year in October. This is a great thing as we were able to really get a great deal of work done in the two week window after closing and before winter conditions. This nice weather left on October 27 when we received 4” of snow and temperatures in the 20s that made sure the snow did not go anywhere. Needless to say, winter settled in about three weeks earlier than “normal” this year. While I wish that we could have been a little more active outside continuing with some of our cultural practices on fairways this fall, I feel pretty good about our winter preparations and expect to come out of the winter in good shape. Unlike some of our golf course accessories which in some instances need replacing.

The golf course closed for play for the year on Sunday, October 8. Our experience has shown over the years that remaining open really does nothing except lose money since the few players we get after the first week of October are not enough to cover the extra costs of staying open. We are truly a destination resort-the area simply does not support a population large enough to give us the kind of volume of play to stay open.